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He hadn’t noticed when he’d pulled up that there were children’s toys in the yard and near the front door. Mike had a child?
Mark winced when he saw the wheelchair ramp and hesitated before putting a foot on it to walk to the door. His nerves were as tight as bowstrings. He rang the doorbell. Seconds later, Tammy opened the door.
“Mark, how nice to see you again.” She pulled the door wider. “Come on in. Mike’s in the den with Johnny.”
She closed the door and Mark followed her down an extrawide hall to a large room at the back of the house.
Mike sat in what could only be called the most high-tech of wheelchairs in the middle of the room. A boy of about three was handing him a block and together they were building a tower on a tray across Mike’s knees. “Mark. Come on in. Let me introduce you to my son, Johnny.”
Mark went over to Mike, who offered his hand for a shake. “Good to see you again.”
Mike dumped the blocks into a bucket beside his chair and then set the tray next to it. “Come here, Johnny, I want you to meet someone.”
At one time Mike would have introduced him as his best friend. By the way he acted he wasn’t even a friend anymore.
The boy climbed into his father’s lap and shyly curled into Mike. He looked up at Mark with an unsure gaze.
“Johnny,” Mark said.
“I think it’s is time for someone to go to bed.” Tammy reached out and took Johnny from Mike. “We’ll let you two talk.”
Mark watched them leave the room and turned back to Mike.
“I admire you.”
“How’s that?”
“Having a wife and family. The responsibility. How do you know you’re getting it right?”
“Right? I have no idea that I am. I make the best decisions I can at the time and hope they are the correct ones. Tammy and I are partners. We make decisions together.” Mike looked directly at him. “Everyone makes mistakes. We’re all human and not perfect. We just have to try harder the next time.”
Was that what he’d been doing? Letting a mistake color the rest of his life? If he couldn’t be sure he’d be the perfect husband or father then he wouldn’t even try.
Before Mark could say anything more, Mike said, “Take a seat and quit towering over me. You always made a big deal of being taller than me. Remember you used to say that was why you got the girls, because they saw you first in a crowd.”
Mark gave halfhearted grin. Had Mike just made a joke?
Taking a seat on the edge of the sofa, Mark looked around the room.
“Why are you here, Mark? After all these years, you show up at my house now,” Mike said, as he maneuvered his chair closer and into Mark’s direct sight line.
He scooted back into the cushions. “Mike, I need to clear the air about a couple of things.”
“It’s well past time for that.”
Those words didn’t make Mark feel any better. “I’m embarrassed about how I acted after the accident. I’m so sorry I left without speaking to you and have done little to stay in touch since. Most of all, I’m sorry I put you in that damn chair.” Mark looked at the floor, wall, anywhere but at Mike.
Moments passed and when Mike spoke he was closer to Mark than he had been before. “Hey, man, you didn’t put me in this chair. I did. I was drunk and not listening to anything anyone said.”
“But I was the one going too fast. I’d driven that part of the road a hundred times. I knew about that ninety-degree turn. I overcorrected.” Mark looked up at him.
“You did. But I wouldn’t have been thrown out if I’d worn my seat belt. I don’t blame you for that. But I have to admit it hurt like hell not to have your support afterwards. I can’t believe you did me that way.”
Mark’s stomach roiled as he looked at a spot on the floor. “I can’t either. That isn’t how friends should act.” He looked directly at Mike. “All I can do is ask you to forgive me and let me try to make it up to you.”
“If you promise not to run out on me again, and buy me a large steak, all will be forgiven.”
Mark smiled for the first time. “That I can do.”
“And I need a favor.”
Mark sat forward. “Name it.”
“I need a good general practice doctor to oversee an experimental treatment that I’m about to start. Do you know one?”
“I just might,” Mark said with a grin. “What’s going on?”
“I just returned from Houston, where they are doing some amazing things with spinal injuries. With all these guys coming back from war with spinal problems, what they can do has come a long way even from nine years ago. I will have a procedure done in a few weeks and when I return home I need to see a doctor every other day to check my site and do bloodwork. My GP is retiring and I’m looking for someone to replace him who Tammy can call day or night.” He grinned. “She worries. Doesn’t believe me when I tell her what the doctor has said. Likes to hear it from the doc himself.”
“I’ll be honored to take the job. I’ll even make house calls if that will help.”
“I may hold you to that.”
For the next forty-five minutes, he and Mike talked about old times and what they were doing in their lives now. Mike had become a successful businessman. He had invented a part for a wheelchair that made it easier to maneuver the chair. As Mark drove away he looked back in his rearview mirror. Mike and Tammy were still under the porch light where he had left them. Tammy’s hand rested on Mike’s shoulder. That simple gesture let Mark know that Mike was loved and happy.
Mike had a home, a wife and child, was living the life Mark had always hoped for but was afraid to go after. All Mark owned was his car and Gus. He’d let the one special person he wanted in his life go. Ironically, Mike had moved on while he had stayed still. And he had been the one feeling sorry for Mike, when he had more in life than Mark did. He wanted that happiness in his life too and knew where to find it.
If he could get Laura Jo to listen. If she would just let him try.
CHAPTER TEN
LAURA JO COULDN’T believe the difference a few weeks had made in her life. It was funny how she’d been going along, doing all the things she’d always done, and, bam, her life was turned upside down by her daughter having a skinned knee. She’d worked Mardi Gras parades before but never had she had a more eventful or emotional season.
She scanned her parents’ formal backyard garden. There were tables set up among the rhododendrons, azaleas and the dogwood trees. None were in full bloom but the greenery alone was beautiful. The different tables held canapés and on one sat a spectacular tea urn on a stand that swung with teacups surrounding it. People in their Sunday best mingled, talking in groups. The eye-popping cost to attend the event meant that the shelter could double the number of women they took in. Her parents had convinced her to let them to do this fund-raiser so that she could get the maximum out of the grant. She’d agreed and her mother had taken over.
How ironic was it that she had rejected her parents and they were the very ones who were helping her achieve her dreams? Her anger and resentment had kept her away from her parents, not the other way around. Forgiveness lifted a burden off her and she was basking in the sunshine of having a family again. She only wished Mark could feel that way, as well. She still missed him desperately.
Allie’s squeal of delight drew her attention. Laura Jo located her. She was running down the winding walk with her new dress flowing in her haste.
“Mark,” she cried, and Laura Jo’s stomach fluttered.
She’d thought he might be here, had prepared herself to see him again, but her breath still stuck in her throat and her heart beat too fast. Each day became harder without him, not easier.
Already she regretted agreeing to let him remain on the board. Now she would have to continue to face him but he was too good an advocate for the shelter to lose him. At least, that was what she told herself. Somehow she’d have to learn to deal with not letting her feelings show.
/> When Allie reached Mark he whisked her up into his arms and hugged her close. The picture was one of pure joy between them.
Laura Jo had worked hard not to snap at Allie when she’d continued to ask about where Mark was and why they didn’t see him anymore. Finally, Laura Jo had told her he wouldn’t be coming back and there had been tears on both sides.
Mark lowered Allie onto her feet and spoke to her. Allie turned and pointed in Laura Jo’s direction. Mark’s gaze found hers, even at that distance. Her heart flipped.
He started toward her.
A couple of people she’d known from her Mardi Gras court days joined her. They talked for a few minutes but all the while Laura Jo was aware of Mark moving nearer.
He stood behind her. She’d know anywhere that aftershave and the scent that could only be his. Her spine tingled.
As the couple moved away Mark said in a tone that was almost a caress, “Laura Jo.”
She came close to throwing herself into his arms but she had to remain strong. She turned around, putting on her best smile like she’d been taught so many years ago. “Hello, Mark, glad you could come.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it.”
His tone said that was the truth.
“Marsha told me that you got the house after all. That’s wonderful. With the grant and all the money you’ve raised, you’ll be able to furnish it.”
“Yes. My father was the one to outbid us. He then gave it to me.”
His brow wrinkled. “You were okay with that?”
“I was. The women needed it too badly for me to use my disagreement with my parents against them. It really was a gift to me anyway. He wanted to make amends by helping other women going through the same experience I had.”
Mark nodded. “It sounds like you and your parents worked things out.”
“I wouldn’t say that it’s all smooth going. But I’ve forgiven them. We’re all better for that. They want to see their granddaughter and Allie needs them. I don’t have the right to deny any of them that.”
“Mama, look who’s here,” Allie said from beside her.
Laura Jo hadn’t seen her approach, she’d been so absorbed in Mark. She turned. “Who—?”
Allie held Gus’s leash. Behind the dog sat Mike and next to him stood his wife. She looked back at Mark.
He smiled and turned toward the group. “I brought a few friends with me. I hope you don’t mind?”
